So busy have I been gorging myself on bloody flesh, gooey cheese and the greenest of greens, that I seem to have completely neglected this blog. Indeed I didn’t even write about the final death throes – of the bet not me.

A quick reminder: The bet was to survive 30 days buying only things from the 99p store including food.

I won the bet (and I use the word ‘won’ very loosely) and claimed my prize of One Gold Coin of the Realm from my brother who had originally challenged me. There were rules to the bet and admittedly I slipped up a number of times. For example: I was out with a friend and hungry so my generous friend bought me a meal. After almost a month of no fresh food you’d think I’d order a salad or half a dozen side orders of vegetables but no! My palette had become so accustomed to the sugary processed flavour of pre-packaged food that I ordered carbonara pasta – the stodgiest thing I could find on the menu. Ironically, you can quite easily find ready-made carbonara in the pound shop. And by some clever fluke the restaurant where we were eating had managed to make my pasta taste exactly as if it had come from a tin…

I also didn’t exactly manage to refrain from partaking of the odd tipple of wine. I think this is completely forgivable as I am half Italian after all. Wine is like breathing to the Italians and you wouldn’t want to stop me breathing right?

So I’ve finished and plan to become a temporary freegan next. If I can find any who live in London. Man, are the freegans elusive! Trying to get in contact with one is like trying to find a sober Irishman on St. Patrick’s day. Impossible. So if anyone knows of any (freegans not sober Irish guys) please contact me by leaving a message here.

The pound shop blog is not quite over. There are still a few things that I did not quite get to writing about like my pound shop dinner party and Henry James.

If you’ve had sleepness nights wondering what kind of horrors I’ve been eating, wonder no more. This is the thing of true nightmares. Tinned meat. Its unique quality is that it manages not to look or taste like meat at all. And no, of course I didn’t eat this…it went straight into the bin and I doubt even a freegan would take it out again.

It was my brother, Chris who set me this pound shop challenge. And it is my brother Chris who is already plotting the next bet. This time he wants me to become a freegan. ‘What’s a freegan?’, I hear you cry. For those who don’t know here’s the blurb from Wiki:

Freeganism is an anti-consumerism lifestyle whereby people employ alternative living strategies based on “limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources. Freegans embrace community, generosity, social concern, freedom, cooperation, and sharing in opposition to a society based on materialism, moral apathy, competition, conformity, and greed.

Yes, basically you root around in bins looking for food.

There are many restaurants, supermarkets and cafes that throw away their goods because they have expired when the food is still edible. In a world where others are struggling to find food to eat, this really is a disgusting thought. I have heard of schemes in Italy that organise ways of talking the expired food to homeless shelters and places of need. Here it is illegal, as far as I understand, to give away food that is past its sell-by-date. So they have to chuck it away. And this is where the freegans step in, to prove what a wasteful society we are.

So I’m considering this bet….but not until Christmas is over. I want my not-very-likely-to-be-found-in-a-bin roast goose first….